Sadie Milligan

Sadie Milligan Gallery

One of the very earliest Bearsden girls, Sadie Milligan came from Ardrossan.

There is considerable speculation among ToCo historians that Sadie may have been responsible for photographer Fullarton’s “entrance into the girlie field”, as one blogger puts it. He surmises that as one photo of her might have been the only example of a Fullarton photo being published in a magazine other than one of the ToCo stable, namely the April 1958 edition of Carnival, which held a beauty competition with a prize of £50 (£1,500 in today’s money) for the winner. Bearing in mind, he says, that Fullarton and Sadie would have received just one guinea for the Carnival picture, did he manage to persuade Sadie to pose free with the prize money as a carrot? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Time and further research will hopefully reveal all – which is more than Fullarton’s models did. It has since come to light that he did enter pictures in other titles around that time as well.

A few years later, Sadie Milligan appeared with another early Bearsden model, Julie Scott. There can be little doubt that Fullarton was indeed the man behind the camera; the silly games the girls play, the fetishist focus on the stocking tops and suspenders − and the DKs. But there is another element here that was seen all too infrequently in the 20 years of ToCo mags – the girdle, an item of underwear worn by many girls and women of the time not only to keep their stockings up but to hold their tummies in. Sadie wore one in some of her photo shoots. Scrumptious. And they are making a come-back!